my father convinced me i was a great math and science student. i'm not a great math and science student, but they filled me with promise and a lot of kids don't have that. you begin to think the darkness is so large and hovers so resonantly that the light is untouchable, but the great virtue of covenant house being 40 years old, and me having been a part of it for 20 years is i now know that doctors and teachers and great parents who were once upon a time homeless kids, but someone inside or outside covenant house loved them and brought them across the bridge of poverty to opportunity. we have to remind ourselves that the light -- and i'm not being sentimental, i really tbleef this -- the light is stronger than the darkness. we have to work together, big things and small things to change the life of a kid. there are people who once a week go there and bake a birthday cake for a kid who never, ever had happy birthday sang to them before. they put signs on the wall, and kids take it down because they have never seen happy birthday my name on a wall